“There’s one other thing, SACEUR,” added McKinlay. “Thanks for agreeing to 3 Para helping to secure the site at Pravdinsk. That’s a good call for us. They’ve been training with the 82nd Airborne. I’m told they’ve even been jumping out of American planes with American parachutes. Not that they’re going to jump tonight, of course.”

“Too right,” added Williams with a grin. Decision made, it was time to lighten up. “I gather they’ve been having an airborne ball and not a Marine has dared to show his ugly—”

“Hang on . . . ,” McKinlay immediately started to protest.

“It’s good to see the Special Relationship is alive and well, guys,” Howard said, interrupting and shaking his head in amusement at the age-old rivalry between the green and red berets.

Then he turned to Williams, his face now grave and obviously all too aware of the consequences of his next order. “Let’s roll, Skip.”

0045 hours, Sunday, July 9, 2017, Central European Time

0145 hours, Sunday, July 9, 2017, Eastern European Time

Command Bunker, Iskander Missile Battery Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad

MAJOR ANATOLY NIKOLAYEVICH Vronsky put his head round the office door, only to see Major Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, the Pravdinsk Guard Force commander, slumped over his desk, head on his arms and snoring loudly, a half-finished bottle of vodka open beside him.

Typical MVD, Internal Troops, he thought to himself, and these are the people responsible for guarding strategic assets like our Iskander batteries!

Picking up his body armor, helmet and webbing from where he’d left it in Luzhin’s office, he slung his AS Val assault rifle over his shoulder and walked down the corridor to the Guard Force Ops Room, where his team were monitoring the surveillance equipment covering the approaches to the perimeter wire. Underneath the Guard Force Ops Room, in the bunker below, was the Top Secret nuclear command and control room, with access only for those cleared at the very highest level.

Vronsky could understand Luzhin’s annoyance. He had arrived the day before with his men and equipment in two trucks. The fat, puffy-faced major with the colorless face had been surprised by the arrival of the Spetsnaz officer wearing no rank or insignia on his combat smock. Surprise had then turned to barely repressed anger when Vronsky had told him that, on General Kirkorov, the Commander of Western Military District’s orders, he was taking over command of the defense and protection of the Iskander compound.